[Python-Dev] C99

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Thu, Oct 06, 2016 at 10:10:54PM -0700, Nathaniel Smith wrote:

> The reason this matters is that the official vendor compiler on RHEL 5
> is gcc 4.1, but there's also a separately-distributed version of gcc
> 4.8.2 that can target it. 

Where can I get that 4.8 for RHEL 5?

I'm using Centos 5, which ought to be the same as RHEL 5, and the 
standard gcc is 4.1, with 4.4 available through yum. If 4.8 is available 
anywhere, I haven't been able to find it. And as far as I can see, 3.6 
won't build under either 4.1 or 4.4 on Centos 5.


> If a packager trying to build manylinux
> wheels wants a more modern gcc, then it's reasonable to ask them to
> get this patched gcc. But for an end-user who's just trying to build
> CPython on their machine, you might or might not consider this an
> acceptable request -- maybe CPython wants to work on default vendor
> compiler to imposing that on users.
> 
> And in practice this almost certainly doesn't matter -- the only
> reason people jump through hoops to get gcc 4.8 is for its improved
> C++ support. I just tried my c99 test file on CentOS 5's default gcc
> 4.1 and it was fine. 

Can you try building Python 3.6? Because it fails for me, and the 
discussion here:

http://bugs.python.org/issue28092

concluded that 4.1 is not supported and I'm right out of luck until I 
can upgrade.




-- 
Steve